Representative Experience

• Mr. Streisand is well known for his victories in courtroom battles over celebrity estates, including the estates of Ray Charles (established heir's inheritance rights), Marlon Brando (enforced children's rights of support and inheritance) and Barry White (won estate's control over famed singer's catalog of songs and recordings and defeated palimony claims and claims by purported heirs).
  
• Mr. Streisand is equally well known for his success in some of the largest and most complex cases in the probate courts. After a six-week trial he was victorious in his defense of a trustee in a $25 million surcharge case, arising out of allegations of self-dealing in redemptions of the trust's stock and options in a private REIT, among other claims.
  
• Mr. Streisand won an eight-figure trial victory, including double damages, for the trustee and executor in a complex case over the ownership of 70 real properties and 25 bank and brokerage accounts, unwinding 40 years of fraudulent creditor and tax avoidance schemes. The trial judgment was affirmed in full in a 58-page opinion of the Court of Appeal.
  
• Some of Mr. Streisand's other recent victories include his successful defense of corporate trustees in a $57 million surcharge and removal case. Mr. Streisand won a $3.3 million surcharge judgment plus attorney's fees and costs against a former trustee, and in the same month, Mr. Streisand won a trial to remove and surcharge a trustee for financial impropriety and conflicts of interest.
  
• Mr. Streisand obtained a $113 million settlement in an action by family members owning a minority interest in the Farmer Bros. Coffee Company against Roy Farmer holding a majority block of the stock through family trusts.
  
• Mr. Streisand won summary judgment for the trustees of the Mark Hughes Trust in an action to surcharge and remove them based on allegations that as trustees and as officers and directors of Herbalife, the company founded by Mark Hughes, they enacted poison pills, golden parachutes and other anti-takeover devices to entrench and enrich themselves at the expense of the beneficiary.
  
• Won dismissal of palimony claims by Coco Johnson against comedian and talk-show host Bill Maher.
  
• Won summary judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Beastie Boys and Capitol Records in a landmark copyright case involving digital sampling and affirmance on appeal in the 9th Circuit. Newton v. Diamond, et al., 349 F.3d 591 (9th Cir. 2003), 204 F.Supp.2d 1244 (C.D. Cal. 2002).
  

Publications/Speeches

• Speaker, Advanced Course on Trust and Estate Litigation, CEB, Los Angeles, California (December 2008)
• Speaker, No-Contest Clauses: The Never Ending Drama (State Bar Annual Meeting, September 2008 and State Bar Road Show, November 2008)
• Speaker, Getting into the Client's (Testator's) Head: A Lawyer's Guide to Diminished Capacity and Use of Medical Experts, ACTEC Fall Meeting, Savannah, Georgia (October 2008)
• Speaker, A Lawyer's Guide to Diminishing Capacity, UCLA/CEB Estate Planning Institute, Los Angeles (May 2008)
• Author, A Lawyer's Guide to Diminishing Capacity and Effective Use of Medical Experts in Contemporaneous and Retrospective Evaluations, ACTEC Journal (Winter 2008)
• Author, Nine Things Entertainment Lawyers Should Know About Probate, The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ. (November 6, 2007)
• Speaker, Will Contests, No-Contest Clauses and Safe Harbors, Center for Judicial Research and Education (CJER) (November 2006)
• Speaker, The Stripper, Playboy Playmate, and Reality Show Train Wreck, the Billionaire Oilman, a Scheming Son and Nine Supreme Court Justices: The Havoc Has Only Just Begun, Los Angeles County Bar Association (October 2006)
more

Media Mentions

• The Top 100 Attorneys of 2008 Worth
• Henry Nicholas Unfit as Co-Trustee, Ex-Wife Says By E. Scott Reckard, Los Angeles Times
• Lawyers Are Punch Line in Suit Over Comedian’s Estate By Don J. DeBenedictis, Los Angeles Daily Journal
• Death Becomes Him By Tina Spee, Los Angeles Daily Journal (Cover Article)
• Judge Tosses Part of Maher Palimony Suit By Blair Clarkson, Los Angeles Daily Journal
• Bill Maher: Ex-Girlfriend Sues for $9 Million By Neil Blincow, Star Magazine
• Sibling Rivalry Heats Up at Torrance Coffee Company By Stefanie Knapp, Daily Journal "Extra"
• Exec's Remark Stir Farmer Bros. Battle By Jerry Hirsch, Los Angeles Times

Affiliations

• Member, Executive Committee, Section on Trusts and Estates, State Bar of California
• Editor, California Trusts & Estates Quarterly
• Member, CEB Estate Planning Advisory Committee
• Member, Planning Committee of the USC Probate and Trust Conference
• Faculty Member, National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA)
• Former Chair, Trusts and Estates Section, Century City Bar Association
• Former Board Member, Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF)
• Former Member, Development Committee, Project Angel Food
• Former Member, Development Committee, Alzheimer’s Association
• Volunteer Attorney, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, offering pro bono publico legal services to the poor and elderly

Distinctions

• Named one of "The 100 Top Attorneys" in Trusts and Estates, Worth magazine (2008 edition)
• Named "Best Lawyer" in Trusts and Estates Law, The Best Lawyers in America, published by Woodward/White, Inc. (2008 and 2009 editions)
• Fellow, American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC)
• Attorney Member, National College of Probate Judges 
• Recipient, Wiley W. Manuel Award for Pro Bono Legal Services, Board of Governors of the State Bar of California
• Named "Southern California Super Lawyer" in Trust & Estate Litigation by Law & Politics in Los Angeles magazine (2004-2008)
• Leading Litigator, Lawdragon 500 America's Leading Trial Lawyers (2006)
• Named one of the "Leading Lawyers in America," Lawdragon 3000 Leading Lawyers Guide (2006)
• Highest "AV" Professional Rating, Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory